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Rowley Leigh - Chef Proprietor
ROWLEY LEIGH, the chef proprietor of Le Café Anglais is one of the founding fathers of modern British cooking. After Cambridge University he tried his hand at farming and novel writing before falling into cooking 'almost by accident' in 1977. After a couple of years at the Joe Allen restaurant, he went to work with the Roux brothers at Le Gavroche in 1979.
After stints at Le Gavroche, the brothers' pastry laboratory and becoming buyer for the group, he took over their prestigious Le Poulbot restaurant as head chef in 1984, receiving many accolades including the Times restaurant of the year award in 1986.
He opened Kensington Place Restaurant with Nick Smallwood and Simon Slater in 1987. Quickly hailed by the Times as restaurant of the year, Kensington Place and its blend of brilliant food and an informal and buzzy atmosphere set the pattern for London restaurants in the 1990's.
In the same decade, Rowley started a career as a cookery writer, winning the prestigious Glenfiddich award three times with The Guardian, The Sunday Telegraph and The Financial Times. He remains cookery correspondent of The Financial Times. His much accoladed book, No Place Like Home, was published in 2001. He left Kensington Place in December 2006 in order to open Le Café Anglais in 2007.
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Nicky Lynskey - Events Manager
NICKY LYNSKEY is the events manager at Le Café Anglais. After a few years on the events team with Café Anglais chairman Anthony Mackintosh at the Groucho Club, Nicky moved to Kensington Place in 1998, where she ran the office, tried to organise Rowley Leigh and managed events.
She moved to Le Café Anglais in January 2008 and helps customers every step of the way when staging events at Le Café Anglais.
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Gordana Sherriff - General Manager
Many of you will know Gordana Sheriff from joints such as the Dean Street Townhouse, The Ivy and, most famously, The Groucho Club under the aegis of our chairman, Tony Mackintosh.
We have persuaded her to abandon the fleshpots of the West End and to return to her West London roots and take over the reins of the front of house here ...
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Ruth Leigh - Assistant General Manager
RUTH LEIGH was born about the same time Colin Westal came to work at Le Poulbot and Nicolas Garcia was just about to start his military service in France.
Joint head girl at school, Ruth read philosophy at Leeds university when not running the Oracle, a haunt of the Leeds glitterati. Whilst not 'advising' her father, she is assistant general manager of Le Café Anglais.
